


a pretty (empty) smile

by theformerone



Series: shikasaku week 2019 [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Arranged Marriage AU, Courtesean AU, F/M, Uchiha bashing, shikasakuweek 2019, wow that's a tag in the year 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 13:09:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18250505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theformerone/pseuds/theformerone
Summary: Sakura did not want to marry. Shikamaru was not born to serve.





	a pretty (empty) smile

**Author's Note:**

> ah, this one is for day 3's prompt, closed doors and empty smiles

"I want him  _dead_ ," she sobs, face buried in his chest, her palms fisted tightly in the thin fabric of his kimono. " _Dead!_ "

She almost shrieks it, and Shikamaru has to hush her sobbing. He rubs his palms gently up and down her arms. She hiccups, which turns into a wet, pitiful cough, and then she slumps against him, exhausted. 

Shikamaru lets their combined weight take them to the ground, and he makes space for the emperor's newest wife between his legs. Shikamaru is a lord himself. He knows better than to have a woman this important touching him the way Sakura is touching him, confiding in him the way Sakura has. 

But he's also been nameless from birth, his clan's final act to preserve the Nara by wiping away their name, then sending the nameless into the new Uchiha court. The Senju had brought the Nara to great esteem during their reign; the Uchiha regarded them as too insightful, and had purged them. Shikaku had been lost; Yoshino, squirreled out of the palace herself, had left behind with a distant cousin, a young Shikamaru, and  _very_ detailed instructions. 

Sakura was a country doctor's daughter, whose brilliance had won her scholarship to learn medicine. She had been a brilliant student of Senju Tsunade's before the purge, and after it, a disciple of Orochimaru. Her brilliance had blossomed blackly after that, tainted with Orochimaru's own wickedness and the darker still plans of the Uchiha. 

She had been thrown in the emperor's way almost by accident. She was a dear friend of one of the emperor's great nephews; his only lover had chosen banishment with the remaining living Senju, and Uchiha Sasuke had demanded amnesty for his last remaining childhood friend. 

She had gotten a better place than that. And much higher esteem. But she had been torn away from her only companion, and thrust into the kind of court life she had never been trained for. 

Shikamaru pitied her. At least he had Ino, who had raised him, and through her, his mother. Sakura didn't have anyone now. The only reason Shikamaru had befriended her in the first place was because of a wound he had sustained on the property before the coup. 

Their bond had been tenuous before it. After, Shikamaru was right to guess that he was Sakura's only lifeline. 

"Hush," he says, soothing her as best as he can. 

The last of her sobs leave her body, and Shikamaru is sure a face's worth of expensive make-up has ruined his simple attire. He focuses instead on plucking at some of her more pointy ornaments, and carefully letting down her hair. 

The emperor would have him whipped for being in his wife's chamber, but Shikamaru would take the beating. She had looked so distraught when he first entered. Nevermind that she had summoned him after sundown. 

They could always say he had brought her a book. There were enough recent additions to her suites to make the lie seem more true. 

"No treason before bedtime, okay?" he asks, holding her face in his hands, rubbing his thumb over her cheek. 

Her green eyes are puffy with tears, but she looks less bleak than she did when he arrived. He wonders how long she paced her room like the wildcat she is, tearing at her bedposts and throwing things around until a suitable amount of time had passed between the emperor's leaving and Shikamaru's summoning. 

Sakura was not as fragile as she looked, and she looked like a young dove; all dark skin from her childhood in the country turned soft with her late days at court. Her callouses would have been gone by now if the emperor did not prefer his surgeon wife be able to work, that she could be more of a zoo attraction than an actual partner. 

She hated the idea, had spat it out as soon as Shikamaru came into the room. ' _I'm a doctor and he keeps me caged up like a doll,'_ she hissed.  _'He is sustaining a war and I should be helping people, but he holds me here because he knows I hate it, but that I have no other options. He is wicked. He is wicked.'_

"Treason," Sakura says, nodding her head, insisting. The pale purple diamond tattooed on her forehead at the end of her training with Tsunade is usually covered these days, painted black or navy or red out of respect for the Uchiha. It is usually the first bit of make up Sakura scrapes off when she is in private. Today, the skin under the diamond has gone red with Sakura rubbing at it. "Let's do treason," she whispers. 

Shikamaru laughs, and busses her nose against hers. 

"We will," he says. 

"When?"

He shrugs. 

"Soon."

"How soon?" 

He breathes out slowly through his nose.

"I want to help you do it."

Shikamaru leans away from her. Sakura frowns. 

"You know I can't let you - ,"

"Don't treat me like a child, you _know_ what I'm capable of - ,"

"Sakura, this isn't about your education - ,"

"It's about the  _country_ \- ,"

"You can't be a part of it, Konoha - ,"

She slams her hand over his mouth, so quickly and with so much force, he bites his cheek so hard it bleeds. He curses, jumping with the pain, but Sakura's face is deadly serious through the assault. 

"Do not," she says, voice low, "call me that."

Shikamaru raises his hands slowly. He lays his hands on top of Sakura's, and slowly pries her hand off his mouth. 

He says her married name, "Konohasakuya-hime," deliberately, and watches her fume as he does it. "You know why you can't."

Because she can't be found guilty of murder if Uchiha Madara is deposed by his great nephews, Uchiha Itachi and Uchiha Sasuke. The only ones by rights allowed to take his blood are the Senju, and his own family. Sakura would upset the balance of their culture if she meddled in such a way, even if only an intimate few knew about it. 

No. History would not treat her kindly if she did what she was so desperate to do. But if Sakura wanted to survive a second transition of power, she needed to be innocent of violent crime, and therefore, still eligible to marry Itachi or Sasuke when they ruled, and returned the Senju to power.

It was out of her hands for her own protection. The plan had been crafted as soon as the Senju were fully aware of every potential casualty of returning fire. The still named Nara that were working with the Senju were meticulous; they even had plans for the innocent Uchiha in the palace. Sakura was one of the few who was aware of the plan the Senju and Nara had made for her, and that was only because she had wrestled it out of Shikamaru. 

"You know why," Shikamaru repeats. And even though Sakura's grip crumples, the fire in her eyes doesn't. Shikamaru is well aware that this argument isn't even close to over. If Sakura can be counted on for anything, it's her fighting spirit. 

She sniffs hard, and that's it. She doesn't nod, doesn't blink to let him know she's heard his verdict. She's stubborn that way. Shikamaru runs his thumb over her cheek again, then presses his lips to the purple diamond on her forehead. 

Her hand slides down low, slips between the skirt of his kimono, and finds the warm skin of his inner thigh. 

"Will you give me his head?" she asks, voice dipping low. 

He turns his head down, presses his cheek against the side of her forehead, breathes in the soft jasmine smell of her hair. Her fingers brush the soft skin on the underside of his cock, and it twitches in interest. 

"I want his blood," she murmurs, turning her face so that the hot air of her mouth billows against the curve of Shikamaru's throat. She scratches the skin of his inner thigh, presses her teeth to a tendon in his throat, closes in on him all at once. "I want him  _dead_."

"You'll have it," he replies, hips arching up, seeking her touch, and he sucks in a breath when her soft wet mouth finds his. 

* * *

 

(This strange part of her, this sudden change that overcame her from time to time, was part of why she could not be involved in the coup. It was also part of why she would win her way into it, and history together.)

 


End file.
